Protection of potentially sensitive data presents multiple challenges. By way of illustration, consider the following example scenario. A user copies his or her data (files, messages, logs, etc.) to an external storage such as a network share, file transfer protocol (FTP), universal serial bus (USB) storage, a cloud storage service, etc. However, if the data contains potentially sensitive information (for example, credit card numbers), copying of this data might result in information leakage, payment card industry (PCI) non-compliance, etc.
Nonetheless, in many instances, the user may not wish to encrypt the entire amount of data (or large portions thereof) to protect against such potential outcomes because encryption is a resource-intensive process. Accordingly, a need exists for enabling a user to selectively encrypt portions of potentially sensitive data within larger sets of data.